Pieces
by Hecate's Wrath
Summary: One hundred prompts. Prompt 87: victim. The first war claims its final victims 30 years late. (Neville wants to crawl into the pyre between his parents and it is only now, when he's 30 and older by the minute, only now that he recognizes his parents as more than corpses.)
1. Sugar

AN: One-hundred prompts to get me going again. I will do my absolute best to update at least every other day.

Standard disclaimer applies. Thanks for reading!

Prompt Number 38: Sugar. George/Luna

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><p>Luna brings a different kind of calm to him after Fred dies.<p>

There is a cacophony of sound in his head, a million different things all fighting and pulling and pushing for attention. Things don't make sense like they used to, and he's got to make some quiet space inside his head.

He tries. He fails.

Luna comes to him, one day, completely out of the blue, and she grabs his face between her cool palms and she shakes her head. "When will you learn?" she asks, her voice gently scolding.

George must have looked confused, because Luna just smiles.

"Wrackspurts, silly," she says, and then she presses a bottle of tonic into his hand. "Three times a day," she whispers. "And you'll find some space in your head."

It does not surprise him when he finds out that the tonic is only sugar water. But he takes it anyway, because what the hell?

And perhaps because of the sugar water, and perhaps because of Luna, and perhaps because some distance from the pain of that day helped make things clearer, George finds the quiet space in his head, like Luna said he would.

He does not intend to go tell her. After all, he highly doubts that he had a Wrackspurt problem, and, even if he did, he doubted sugar water would do anything to clear them up, but he takes a walk one day and he ends up at the other end of Diagon Alley, standing in front of a quaint little shop with "Luna Lovegood, Healer of Holistic Medicines" on a sign on the front.

George glances at his watch without seeing the time, and then he walks in.

A bell jingles in the depths of the space and George takes a minute to look around the inside. He's in what appears to be a waiting room, filled with cushy, overstuffed chairs and sunflowers on tables. A small desk sits against one wall, next to a curtain that is a bright, violent yellow. A minute passes and then the curtain rustles and Luna steps out into the room, wearing a set of voracious purple robes with a large tulip bobbing in her hair. Her earrings matched the tulip and appeared to be actually growing.

"Oh, hullo, George," she greets him pleasantly as her earrings bloom over and over again. "What can I help you with? Your Wrackspurts seem to have cleared up; I can see you much better now."

George nods absently and jams his hands in his pockets. "It's just sugar water, Luna," he blurts finally and Luna laughs.

"I know," she says. "Wrackspurts _hate_ sugar water."

George is a little taken aback and he rubs the back of his neck. "Well—I feel better. Um. Thanks."

Luna nods, her face lit up. "You're welcome."

George doesn't want to leave, but he can't find anymore words. Thankfully, he doesn't have to; Luna seems to know exactly what he needs, and she takes his hand and leads him back behind the curtain.

It's a surprisingly calm room, in comparison with the waiting room. It is what George assumes to be Luna's office and he settles into a small chair set across from a desk. Luna settles in at her desk and pulls a stack of papers towards her. It takes her a minute or two, but then she nods.

"It's hard, isn't it?" she asks, her voice soft. "At first, you don't even feel like moving on, you know? And then when you finally _do_, you start feeling guilty, as if that makes _any_ sense. Because a part of you doesn't want to leave them behind."

Luna lights a couple of candles for no apparent reason and then she steeples her fingers, her ridiculous earrings blooming faster in the light. "After Mother died, I saw Daddy go through it," she says softly. "I think he still goes through it. I don't think it's ever something you get over, the guilt. I think it's something you deal with every single day of your life, and I think that's okay." Luna looks up at him. "You're going to be okay, George. I can feel it."

George doesn't say anything, but he does relax a little and Luna smiles.

He's going to be okay.


	2. Addicted

Prompt: Addicted. Pairing: Draco/Pansy and Draco/Astoria. Summary: She hates herself a little bit more every time.

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><p>She hates herself a little bit more every time.<p>

His fingers press indentations into her hips, leave bruises on her skin, and she craves his rough, unbridled lust, as much as he craves her curves. He wants her for her body; for the curvy hips and voluptuous breasts and her peaches and cream skin, her dark hair and dark eyes and painted smirk. He wants her for the simple fact that she is the complete opposite of the Greengrass girl he's shackled to.

Pansy likes to tell herself that he loves her, not that slut, but she knows it's a lie. It tastes bitter in the back of her throat, like bile.

Pansy is round in places Greengrass is rail-thin. Harsh where she is gentle, hard where she is soft. Pansy knows Draco does not want her for the happily ever after, but that he wants her for the sweet rush of adrenaline he gets from her, from fucking someone who isn't his wife.

Something about routine makes men like Draco wild—something about chaining them to one life their entire life makes men like Draco a little crazy, a little hungry, a little rebellious.

And, for all that Pansy knows it is so wrong on so many levels, she is addicted to him. Draco is her fix, and she needs him just as surely as she needs the air.

She hates herself for falling for Draco time and again, and she hates herself for not caring.

It is always the same. Pansy stands still on the corner, wrapped in a cloak, standing half in shadow, trying to avoid eye-contact with anyone and then Draco is suddenly _there_ and Pansy, where she had been hard and tense before, relaxes, throwing herself into his arms.

She relaxes and an easy smirk steals across her face and anyone could mistake them for two casual lovers, spending the afternoon together, but Pansy touches his cheek and he jerks away, tugging her arm hard, and pulling her down the street to the small inn they frequent.

It's always the same.

He pays for the room, and then drags her into it, jerking at his robes. Once the door is shut, he jerks at _her_ robes and then pins her to the bed.

It feels good. Pansy is anything but _delicate_ and she would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it.

But.

Sometimes she wants gentle and loving where Draco is always hard and fast and furious and bruising. The bruises last for days, but they don't bother Pansy. She is not china and lace; she does not break easily. She just wants a little romance sometimes.

Once, just once, she wishes Draco would be the Draco he was at Hogwarts. And he was hardly all butterflies and sunshine and daisies there, but he did do little things for her. Hold doors. Pour her tea, fix it the way she liked it. Casual touches, the lending of a cloak when it's chilly outside. Draco was raised a gentleman, for all that he was a spoiled brat. Malfoys were arrogant, but they weren't rude to their women.

But that was the problem, then. That Pansy wasn't Draco's woman. That honor went to the Greengrass girl, not Pansy, never Pansy. She was the Other Woman, and this released Draco from all the niceties and expectations of his relationship with Astoria.

She'd be lying if she said that Draco's attachment to her was anything more than a middle-aged crisis, a release. Draco wanted her for reasons she didn't want to be wanted. Where Pansy desired romance, Draco saw only his release, and that was the true tragedy.

That Pansy would belong to Draco so wholly and completely, that she would come when called—in this lay the crux of her addiction.

(Sometimes, after Draco had left, wiping the lipstick off of his face and tugging his robes straight, after he'd sneered down at her, after he'd set a time for their next meeting, after the ache and the cold set it, sometimes Pansy would imagine she and Astoria's roles were reversed. That she, Pansy, was the fine woman on Draco's arm, that she gave him everything Astoria did not. But the war has broken more than just the heroes, and here she is.)

Addicted, and she hates herself a little bit more every time.

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><p>Your thoughts and feedback are, as always, so so so appreciated.<p> 


	3. Run

Chapter 3. Prompt: Run. Pairing: Dorcas/Fabian. Death is no excuse to look like a vagabond.

AN: I have recently begun dabbling in First Order fanfic. This is (with the exception of _A Little Endowment_) my first foray into this group of people. I hope to write more, as I am very happy with how this turned out.

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><p>Dorcas Meadowes is nothing if not a lady.<p>

She has always been (and will always be) a lady, regardless of her situation.

It's the little things Fabian notices about her that make her different from Marlene or Alice or even Lily. (Lily's great, don't get him wrong, but Dorcas has always been the only one for him.)

Things like cleaning her spoons off in the diners they'd meet in, or making sure her nails were clean. She seldom wore anything but skirts under her robes and the very few times he'd seen her in pants, he'd teased her so relentlessly she'd scolded him and beat him with her wand. She always made sure they had tea time, always kept things nice and neat and tidy at headquarters. Once, they'd been heading home (Dorcas always made Fabian or someone stay with her to the very door of her flat) and Dorcas had been in heels. Pumps really, little black, demure things, nothing fancy, but pumps nonetheless. And, as they walked up the steps to her flat, a couple of Death Eaters jumped out at them, waving their wands and shouting.

Fabian grabbed Dorcas and jerked her back, and she stumbled. They ran for three blocks, firing curses over their shoulder, until Fabian spotted an opening in the alleyway. He grabbed Dorcas' arm and pulled her after him. Thanks to a quick couple of curses on Dorcas' behalf, they escape, and truss up the three Death Eaters, calling the Aurors. As soon as the Death Eaters are secured, Dorcas curses and starts pulling her clothes straight and fixing her hair. Fabian gives her a disbelieving look that turns into complete and utter shock when he realizes she is still wearing her heels.

"What?" she snapped, tucking her hair behind her ears and pulling a compact out of her pocket, working on her makeup.

"Those—those damn shoes," he says, between bouts of laughter. "You ran in those damn shoes for three fracking blocks and we _still_ won."

Dorcas sniffs and tugs her skirt straight under her robes.

"And now you're worried about your appearance," he says, another laughing fit overtaking him.

Dorcas turned her back on him and tucked her compact away. "Running for your life, Fabian," she said crisply, "is no excuse to look like a vagabond." Her light blue eyes flicked up and then down his form and she shook her head, turning to face the Aurors when they apparated in.

The story of Dorcas running three blocks in her heels quickly became an Order favorite, and every time it was brought it up, Dorcas sniffed primly and refused to comment.

It is so twistedly fitting that she dies in those heels.

He (Fabian only calls him "he" in his head. He does not use his name) catches her after work one night. Dorcas usually waited to apparate until she was tucked away in an alley somewhere. Fabian never really understood why, but Dorcas assured him she had good reasons.

They find her body the next morning. She is cold and still in death, her eyes frozen open in horror. Fabian finds her and he drops to his knees next to her, shaking. Her long hair fans out behind her and her makeup was smudged after work. Her skirt is riding up around her thighs and her robe is wrinkled. The blouse is haphazard and messy.

She looks nothing like the Dorcas he'd like to remember. He closes his eyes, pressing his forehead against his chest, and for a long time, he just sits, recalling a time when the chest he leaned against rose and fell with life and the lifeless girl underneath him was warm and pleasant and wonderfully soft beneath an icy exterior.

Once he manages to collect himself enough to move on, he tugs all of Dorcas' clothing straight and combs her hair down around her. He closes her eyes and, for a brief moment, she could be sleeping.

Death was no excuse to look like a vagabond.

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><p>Thanks for reading!<p> 


	4. Fire

_For Amber_

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><p>They have to cut her hair, to treat her injuries.<p>

Injury.

There's only one, one injury that spawns its own little hurts, festers infections and complications.

After the curse hit her, at the juncture of her collarbone and neck, Morag remembers only pain. The _redhotwhiteblinding_ pain that arches her spine, eats along her arm, across her back, up her face. It was clearly intended to kill. Sometimes Morag wishes it had.

She falls. She stares at the fractured ceiling, dust and dirt and pieces of stone falling into her raw, raw skin. As the light starts fading, she wonders if this is all there is.

What Comes After is something she and all of the DA have considered. Late at night, lying in a hammock, staring at the ceiling, Morag would wonder what death felt like. If it was a winter or a summer. She wondered what _dying_ felt like. In the last moments, the final few breaths, if they hurt.

And, as she lies on chunks of the ceiling, the smell of her own skin burning embedded in her nostrils, she finds the answer to her questions.

Death is a cold fire. And it hurts. Like a burning freezing inferno.

As the last vestiges of consciousness fade from Morag's mind, Anthony's coal black curls swim into view, and his hazel eyes come next, filled with worry. His mouth is moving, and it says "Morag, Morag" and somewhere she registers that this is her name, but his voice comes from very far away. "Oh, Godric, Morag, what've they done to you? What've they—" his voice breaks off into a sob as he grabs her shoulders. His fingers press into the raw skin of the remainder of her right arm and she screams and—_ _ohgodpleaseletmedie pleaseletmedie ____thishurtsithurtsithurts mommydaddy ____makeitstopmakeitstop__

The world flashes red, then white, and then black.

The pain fades, the sound of Anthony's anguished sobs fade, and there is nothing but the blackness, and Morag is floating in it.

When she wakes up from the black, she is in a bubble of silence. The world is eerily still and quiet and she does not open her eyes because if she is dead, she doesn't want to see. She listens to the silence of her bubble and snippets and snatches of conversation break the pleasant bubble around her.

"—lucky to be alive—"

"—she'll never regain the use of—"

"—for how long?"

"—keeping her sedated with—"

"—will she be okay?"

"—should wake up in the next—"

"—_will she be okay_?"

The last snippet pops the bubble and suddenly, Morag is _on fire_. She screams, shocked, and the voices stop suddenly, but the fire continues and grows. Morag's screams stop when her voice gives out, but she keeps her mouth stretched in a silent scream.

"Morag?" the last voice asks finally. "Morag?"

She turns her head towards that voice—she know that voice!—but the fire roars up again and she gasps, wanting to scream again.

"It's okay," the voice says gently, stroking her left hand. "It's okay, it's going to be okay."

But it does not feel okay, nor does it feel like it's ever going to be okay again.

It takes days (that seem like weeks, months, years) until the fire starts easing off and the smoke starts to clear.

Morag is finally able to open her eyes and she looks around.

The Healers have given her a gentle recap of her injuries.

_Injury_.

Just one. She was hit with a curse. It ate away the skin on the right side of her face, her arm down to her elbow, her shoulder blades and down her back to her waistline.

They are having a hard time getting the skin to grow back. The skin took her right eye and her right ear, and they had to cut her hair to treat it.

She cries over her hair. Tears leak out of what's left of her right eye and sting the raw flesh that is what's left of her face.

Over her _hair_.

Of all the things for Morag to cry over, she sheds the most tears over her long, auburn corkscrews, such a source of vanity for her, and jealousy for other girls.

Turned on her left side (it's the only way she can stand to be until the smooth a salve over her red raw hamburger meat of a body and put bandages over it and then she can tolerate lying on her back for a little bit), she misses the comfortable weight of her curls smoothed over her shoulder. She feels naked, exposed. She can only lay on her back for about an hour (sometimes two) before she is sobbing, begging to be but back on her side, the tears ruining the bandages they've so carefully crafted to her face.

One month after the battle, the skin still refuses to heal. It is raw and open and just as painful as it was a month ago when it happened.

"At least you still have the use of your right hand," the overly Optimistic Healer says and Morag would have glared, but squinting her eyes hurts too much.

"If I can pick my arm up to use it," Morag replies, picking over the words slowly and carefully. Every syllable pulls at the raw skin and sends fire racing down her side. She doesn't speak for the most part.

Her mother had always loved her hair and when she comes to see her after it's been cut—she cries. Cries openly, in front of her daughter and Morag just crumbles. She can't be strong from the both of them.

It had been just Morag and her mother for a long time, and they were more like sisters than mother and daughter.

Morag had always been the responsible one, more like the parent, but now, now when she needs her mother the most, her mother can only cry and pet the remainder of Morag's hair.

She asks her mother not to come back for a while after that.

Anthony, the voice she recognized in the very beginning, does not leave her bedside. He clings to her left hand, and finds things to talk about, even on the days when Morag spends most of her day in a calming draft induced stupor.

The day the Healers stumble on the combination of salves that make the skin start to regrow, Anthony brings her a bouquet of daisies tied with a Ravenclaw blue ribbon. Morag cries, and the tears burn tracks of fire down the so sensitive new skin.

After enough of her skin has grown back, the Healers allow Morag to sit up. She immediately asks Anthony for a mirror.

He looks hesitant. "Morag, you know…"

"Give me a damn mirror, Anthony, or I'll have _them _bring me one."

Anthony sighs and hands her a mirror.

Morag is shocked. She does not look like herself, not even close. She breaks the mirror and dissolves into sobs.

Anthony holds her gently, murmuring to her and humming softly.

"I like it," he says finally and Morag scoffs. Anthony shakes his head. "It's short, but it'll grow, Morrie."

"Maybe," she spits out bitterly, and whimpers when her anger causes her to be careless in her speaking and it rips the fragile scabs around her lips open. "Shit."

Anthony's eyes are sad and he pats her knee. "You're still my girl, okay?"

Morag's eyes fill with tears. "It's never going to get better, Anthony," she whispers and he shakes his head furiously.

"That's not true. It's not."

Morag sniffs and next week, Anthony brings the Hufflepuffs with him. Susan has knitted her a soft hat that she can wear when her skin heals over and Hannah brings a bunch of wild daisies, setting them up on her bedside table for "a little bit of sunshine."

After the girls leave and she and Anthony are left alone, Morag takes his hand and looks at him, very seriously. "Okay."

That's all she says and that's all she has to say—from then on things start to get better.

Her scars turn pink and her hair starts to grow, but her auburn corkscrews don't come back. Her new hair is a shade darker and pin-straight. It doesn't grow right on the one side, and so Morag keeps it short and wears hats.

It becomes a game. Everyone that visits her brings a different hat, from the ridiculously exaggerated and silly hat George brings her, to the floppy straw hat decorated with sunflowers that Luna brings.

On the day of her release from Mungo's, Anthony brings Morag a bright blue hat that is so soft on the inside with a small bow on the brim. He presents her with the hat, a bouquet of daisies, and a small velvet box.

Morag looks surprised. "Anthony, I don't know if I'm ready to—"

Anthony shakes his head, turning pink. "No, it's not what you think. Open it."

Morag frowns, but obediently opens the velvet box. Inside, nestled in a bed of silk, is a perfect auburn corkscrew curl, tied with a blue ribbon.

"When they brought you in and started cutting your hair," Anthony says softly. "I—kept it. In case you wanted to remember."

Morag clutches the box and she cries. The tears don't burn.

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><p>Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear from you!<p>

This piece is also an exploration-I am considering a-gasp!-chaptered story along the same lines. Let me know what you think?


	5. Birthday

Prompt 10: Birthday. Sometimes Hannah forgets.

AN: It wouldn't feel right to post this piece without giving a nod to its inspiration. _Expecting Rain_ has written some of the most beautiful work I've ever read. Her Bellatrix piece "Seventeen" gives me chills every time I read it. The similarities between this work and that one are few, but it was a part of my inspiration. Go read it. Review it. Love it.

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><p>Sometimes Hannah forgets, in the midst of this hell, how incredibly, painfully young they are. It's a little too easy to push childhood aside in favor of survival, but Hannah grieves the loss of pigtails and curls, takes it harder than she thought she would.<p>

Seamus makes some smart remark to Lavender about her party-planning skills going south when they gather around some alcohol and some stale cake and mumble through "Happy Birthday" for the Patil twins. Elladora Michaels has just vanished and, though Hannah hopes and prays with every fiber of her being Ella's parents have just pulled her out of school, Ella's Muggleborn and they all know a much grimmer fate awaits the freckle-faced Ravenclaw.

Anyway, Ella's disappearance hangs like a black cloud over their party and they're all just fumbling for reasons to be happy. This doesn't make for a very happy birthday, anyway, and if things continue the way they have, the Patils aren't going to have a very happy year, either.

Hannah can't help but cry a little bit when she realizes that Parvati and Padma are eighteen.

(She's seventeen and she's never felt so painfully young.)

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><p>Her eighteenth birthday is forgotten—it's three days after the Final Battle and everyone is still a little too shell-shocked, a little too sore and broken to remember such a thing as a birthday.<p>

Susan would've remembered, Hannah comforts herself, throwing herself whole-heartedly into the cleanup. Susan would've thrown something together, probably with Lavender's help, and they'd have celebrated it, somehow. But Susan's lying in the Great Hall next to Ernie and Colin and Professor Lupin and his wife and Fred and so many others, and Lavender's in the Intensive Care Ward at Mungo's so Hannah's eighteenth dawns with nothing so much as a mumbled "happy birthday."

She moves the big stones from the towers on her birthday and as the sun sets and her muscles start to scream at her in protest, she finds a seat on one of them and shoves her sweaty blonde hair out of her eyes. Neville brings her some water and she thanks him with a sad, tired smile.

(He takes her out for ice cream that night, and sings her "happy birthday" so quietly she barely hears it.)

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><p>Hannah mourns the little things other people seem to have forgotten in the wake of bigger tragedies—the plants in Greenhouse One (everyone is devasted by Greenhouse Four's destruction—they lost so many remedies and it will take years—decades—to replace it), which aren't necessarily important, but Hannah cries for them, anyway, because it's just one more thing of beauty Voldemort has ripped apart.<p>

And Hannah mourns the gardens on the East side of the castle, and she mourns the whomping willow, and all the poor little bugs and animals that never had a chance, anyway. So many other things have been lost, but Hannah takes time to remember the small things.

She's busy crying over a little family of rabbits that she found when Neville stumbles across her. He sits down next to her heavily, smelling like grass and sweat and dirt and boy and Hannah just leans into him.

"It's silly," she whispers, petting the soft fur of one of the babies. "So silly for me to be upset over this when we've lost so much else, but it's just so senseless. It all is."

Neville's hands cover hers and set the baby rabbit down. "Not silly," he disagrees. "It just proves this bloody war hasn't taken all you have to offer."

(She's got so much more to give, Neville reminds her, so much more life left in her.)

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><p>Neville pushes her to go onto to Healer's Academy, or perhaps into teaching—something she can give back in.<p>

Hannah refuses all of it. She is done with pain and suffering and she cannot—she _cannot_—stand to bandage one more broken person. She's put herself and Neville and everyone else back together so many times she's forgotten how to just be Hannah. She has given more of herself than she ever intended to—she will keep the remaining pieces of her heart for herself.

She takes over the Leaky Cauldron when Tom passes on. It is rewarding work, for a Hufflepuff, and Hannah adores all of her customers. She supports Neville whole-heartedly in his Herbology studies, but Hannah is done with school and done with giving of herself.

(After their children are born, Neville asks her again, and Hannah declines. She has given all of the pieces of her life she cares to spare.)

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><p>Leave the thoughts you care to spare on the way out. Thank you for your time.<p> 


	6. Rise

Prompt 19: Rise

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><p>"<em>We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face…we must do that which we think we cannot." –Eleanor Roosevelt<em>

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><p>Her pyjama pants have moons and stars on them and they hang off her hips in a way that's almost-not-quite seductive. (It's not intended to be seductive. She's lost weight, that's all it is, and she can't find the time to tailor her clothes, let alone her pyjamas.) Her sleep shirt is grey and hangs off her, too, and she wears socks to bed, thick socks with little dancing house elves on them. Hermione (at least the Hermione from first year, the Hermione decked out in innocence and self-righteousness) would hate them, would screech something about them being totally gauche, totally inappropriate. He thinks they're funny, and funnier still because of what Hermione would think. (It's an easier reality, to think that Hermione would still find a cause to pin herself to, even now when the world's gone spare, and there's no sense in anything anymore—even now, Hermione might still fight for rights for house elves, even now.)<p>

Lavender has never given a second thought to what Hermione might think, except for when it concerned a certain ginger-haired boy and her first, innocent love. (It's not love. Not really. Not in the truest, barest sense of the word. In that sense, it is only a schoolgirl crush, but to sixteen-year old Lavender, it was love and lace and happily ever after until Hermione tore it all away.) As far as Lavender is concerned, Hermione and her opinions on Lavender's sleepwear can fuck well off.

It's so very strange, to see Lavender in her pyjamas, because Lavender is still Lavender, even decked out in crimson bravery and golden courage instead of pink lace and frills. She has a very firm opinion on when and which pyjamas she is to be seen in, and these—the ones with moons and stars and teenage innocence—these would hardly make the cut.

So it's surprising, to say the very least, when Lavender comes barging into his dorm room, wearing the moon and the stars on her pants, it's surprising, and not in a way that Seamus would like to be surprised.

What's more surprising, though, is that Lavender is afraid. She masks it well enough, under the layers of careful arrogance and just enough Lavender-esque disdain to draw Neville off, but Seamus knows her better than that.

Not to say he's any great success with witches. He's barely competent when it comes to friendship—girls are a different story. Romantic Seamus is not, and it's no great secret, no big revelation. But he knows Lavender. He can't woo her, not to save his life, but he knows her, and he knows that when she comes stomping into their dorm room, all haughty arrogance and casual disdain (Lavender is still Lavender, after all), she is scared, down to her very bones, and she doesn't know what to do.

Not that he's any better. Not that Neville's any better. Because there were no instructions on "what to do when your school gets overtaken by Death Eaters and your fearless leader has gone missing" and Neville and Seamus and everyone—they're just making do, doing the best they can, making it up as they go along, the best they know how.

Seamus doesn't know what to do any more than the (painfully young) girl standing in front of him, but he's got just enough crimson recklessness running through his veins that it's easy to pretend he does, to pretend he knows what Neville's doing, to playact that he's got a plan (he doesn't), that the Carrows don't scare him (they do), that the girl standing in front of him doesn't break his heart into little pieces (she does).

Seamus takes Lavender's arm and leads her from the room because he _knows_ Lavender, and he knows the tears are coming, and he knows Lavender hates to cry in front of anyone, unless she can be the center of attention and have people doting on her, and that Lavender—the social butterfly, the attention seeker—she's long gone and the girl she's left in her presence is more woman than girl.

He's right—she dissolves into tears moments after he leads her off.

Lavender—when she's really crying, and not just letting a few tears run down her cheeks—when she's really, truly crying, it's not a pretty sight. Her face goes blotchy and swollen, and there is snot and tears and weird facial expressions. Lavender does not cry prettily, as much as she's tried, and she especially doesn't right this second.

Seamus never knows what to do with a crying woman. He doesn't know what to do with a woman, period, much less one who's crying because she's scared. (A part of Seamus wants to sit down and cry right along with her, but he thinks that might be a poor choice, and instead he opts for a careful silence, knowing Lavender will talk if and when she wants to.)

She doesn't disappoint. Amid hiccups, she explains that she's just scared. (Seamus already knew this.) Lavender is only seventeen, after all, and she's no child, but there are days when she'd much rather be silly and seventeen and girly instead of this brave war hero of a woman. Seventeen still clings to the last vestiges of childhood, but those have been ripped away from her, and she _wants them back_.

Childhood looked good on Lavender—she is well-suited to silly frilly girly things and syrup-sweet dreams. Wartime is much less kind to silk and lace; Lavender decked out in hell and heartbreak is much less becoming.

(She's still beautiful, Seamus thinks, though Lavender is just barely pretty, still beautiful with her world running tracks down her cheeks, down her chin, making wet spots on her shirt. Is this what they've been reduced to? The bumbling sidekick and his sad, just-pretty bride? There has to be more. This can't be everything he's fighting for. And yet something in her pretty blue eyes and long honey-brown hair, something in the curve of her shoulders and the press of her hands against her face—something there whispers that he'd do it all again, for her, only for her.)

"Sorry," she says finally, her voice congested. "I'm sorry. I don't quite know what came over me."

He hangs an arm around her shoulders. "Ah do," he says, exaggerating his thick Gaelic burr to irritate her. "Yer not the only lass who's lost her composure in mah presence."

It has the desired effect. Lavender (despite herself, despite the war, despite their world falling down around them) smiles and smacks his shoulder. "Fuck off, Seamus." (The smile reaches her voice, and Seamus glows with pride. Maybe he knows a thing or two about women after all.)

It's funny, but it's that stolen moment that Lavender thinks about when Amycus points his wand at her and says (in a voice that's so different from Seamus', but all Lavender can hear in her head is _Yer not the only lass_) that if she didn't hex little Odette Peters, she wouldn't hex anything at all, and that moment (and Seamus, behind her, holding his breath for her) gives her enough crimson to put a little starch in her spine, raise those pretty blues and look Amycus dead in the eyes.

_You don't scare me anymore, _are the words she screams at him across their staring match, but Amycus laughs and raises his wand.

The courage doesn't fall from her eyes—it only grows stronger, brighter, even as she writhes on the floor in front of him. A lioness rises from the tatters of silk and lace and Lavender grows into her bravery, into the crimson and gold that run through her veins.

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><p>Let me know what you think. thanks for reading!<p> 


	7. Sunshine

Prompt 92: Sunshine. _It's "you are my sunshine," the way she's said it the past 60 years and Ernie hears it as clearly as if she'd spoken it._

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

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><p>The war takes her voice. Some curse hits her throat and, for eight long months, Susan can't eat solid food. She subsists on nutrient-rich potions and water until her throat finally heals enough to handle something more solid.<p>

Ernie is by her side through the entire thing. _His_ was the first face she saw, it was _his_ hands clinging to hers; it was _his_ voice that pulled her out of that deep, dark place, looked her in the eyes and said "you are worth fighting for."

Her first "solid" meal is strawberry ice cream. It tastes like she imagines heaven might, or maybe she just really likes having something with more of a substance that water. (Heaven has a lot more substance. She'd like to sink her teeth into heaven.)

Ernie watches her eat it, and the look on his face makes her chest hurt. He's just _beaming_, just about to shatter into a million pieces of sunshine right there across from her. He's proud and Susan smiles back, reaching for the spoon again.

She never speaks again. She can't. The curse has destroyed her voice beyond a hope of repair. She learns to speak with her hands, to write her words, but it's frustrating, at first, and Susan never does well with frustration. She is a Hufflepuff, and she is patient and kind and gentle, but she's hardly perfect, and she finds frustration in herself, in her inability to appropriately convey what would be so easy to say with her voice. She lost tone and inflection and there is only so much emotion she can convey with quill and parchment.

Ernie, though, Ernie is a saint, and she would tell him if the war hadn't stolen her voice. So she writes the words, over and over, and smiles them over at him, and he is the reason she gets up in the morning. He is her beginning and her end; when the days turn dark with her despair, he paints her a brighter sky. The war took all the family she had, and so Ernie gives her his.

He proposes to her without words, one day. It is a particularly difficult day for Susan, and he comes in with soup from the Leaky, compliments of Hannah, and she cries silent, bitter tears because she will _never speak again_, and Ernie tilts her chin up, and looks into her eyes and she just _knows_.

"Marry me?" he whispers, but it's only a formality; he's already asked her a hundred times and she's said yes a hundred more.

She is released from Mungo's on a rare sunny day. "Look," Ernie says, her hand tucked safely in his as they make their way to the Apparation checkpoint. "Even the sunshine is happy to see you."

_You are my sunshine_, she thinks, and later she will write the words, mouth them as he makes love to her, presses her into his sheets, makes her feel like all the world will be right again.

When she wears white and stands across from Ernie, her vows are written on her hands. She presses them to his face, and pulls him close. Her promises don't need spoken word to be kept; they need only Ernie, and strawberry ice cream, and the way she feels when she looks at him, like she might just melt, or burst into a million lovely pieces.

Not that it's easy. Love grows easily, but its survival takes work and dedication. They are human; they fight. Susan may not have her words, but her aim could rival Ginny Weasley's when she's angry.

But they survive. There are children and years spent learning each other, and each year is lovelier than the last, Susan would argue. And when they are grey and there are grandchildren, and Ernie's hearing fades, Susan presses her hands into his. It's "you are my sunshine," the way she's said it the past 60 years and Ernie hears it as clearly as if she'd spoken it.

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><p>Thank you for reading. Leave your thoughts on the way out.<p> 


	8. Inside

Summary: Real beauty is on the inside, she supposes, but she does pretty well on the outside, too.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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><p>They try really, really hard to make it work, but it's a little less exciting when all that's happening are doctor's appointments and burned dinners and picking up the pieces they've got left. Lavender and Seamus have always been well-suited for the extraordinary; the mundane suits them much less, and four weeks after Lavender leaves the hospital for the last time, their romance turns like the leaves and falls just as fast.<p>

She tries. (God, does she _try.)_ So does he. They both give it their all—give this failing romance everything they have. They are war-torn Gryffindors—they do not surrender so easily, but when the sun sinks and their relationship lays in tatters on the floor, it's plain to see that some battles aren't worth fighting.

They part amicably. It's nothing personal, nothing bitter or broken about their relationship, but it worked better when the world was falling down around their ears. Now, in the bright sunshine of another era, their relationship is just one more relic from a darker time. Their parting is only the natural progression of things; the DA was the glue that held their relationship together and now that its dissolved, they are nothing more than pieces that don't quite fit.

Lavender is passion—she is ripe red splashes on the page. She loves and fights with all that she has, but with Seamus, that passion fades. There is only one fight, only one screaming, knock-down, drag-out fight that leaves Lavender a little breathless and makes her wonder if it's worth fighting for after all, but Seamus sees the light in her eyes and he shakes his head. "There are better things out there, for both of us, Lav."

And she can't help but agree, because the fire in her veins from the fighting fades with the sunrise, and she has to find other reasons to live. (Lavender is a romantic. She wants Seamus to be the end and the beginning of her world.)

Single feels better than she thought it would. _Independence_ feels good. She can do whatever the hell she pleases whenever the hell she pleases, and that almost makes up for the scars that paint her back in red and white lace. Almost.

It hurts, when Seamus introduces her to his "better thing." She wears golden curls and deep brown eyes and she is barely 18. She is untouched—she's some witch from South Africa Seamus met at a Quidditch match. Lavender resents her—she resents this pretty, unblemished face—the perfect hair and the trusting smile. Lavender has only ever had "pretty" and this girl claims beautiful as a birthright. But more than that, Seamus has traded Lavender in for innocence; those deep brown eyes are a shade darker than Lavender's own, but Lavender's house ghosts; this girl's are bright and happy. To her, Lord Voldemort is nothing more than a childhood terror; a threat to chase her into her bed at night.

And Lavender is jealous, if only for a minute, that this girl would claim her hero's affections when she was the one to fight beside him; she was the one to have endured so much for the cause.

But green was never her color and Lavender tries to let it go. She designs clothes and marches around with her scars on display. (Lavender loves attention. That, at least, hasn't changed.) If they want to stare, Lavender will give them a reason.

Her something else takes his sweet time coming around. He has Weasley-red hair and crinkly brown eyes. He stares at her smooth arms, her long legs, the arch of her spine, and he sees the scars, but he sees the lioness underneath. He wears scars all his own, but his burns are from fighting with dragons and the other scars he wears where no one can see. They swap stories and Lavender feels like she can claim beautiful as her own, now.

Real beauty is on the inside, she supposes, but she does damn well on the outside, too.

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><p>Thank you for reading!<p> 


	9. Victim

Prompt 87: victim

Summary: The first war claims its final victims 30 years late. (Neville wants to crawl into the pyre between his parents and it is only now, when he's 30 and older by the minute, only now that he recognizes his parents as more than corpses.)

AN: Where have I been? Around. Trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. Writing dirty Supernatural fic. Drooling over Sam Winchester. Questioning my sexuality. You know. The usual.

Disclaimer: Just playing in JKR's sandbox.

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><p>Frank dies on a Thursday in October, at three in the afternoon; three hours later, with the son she still doesn't know and the mother-in-law who scares her still, so many years later (though she's not sure why), by her side, Alice follows.<p>

Neville sighs and his Gran pats his shoulder. "Come on, boy," she says (he's still "boy" to her, now, even when he's 30 and a professor and _married_). "This has been a long time coming."

Augusta isn't cruel. She's nowhere near sympathetic, but she isn't unkind, and her words aren't meant to smart like they do.

Neville knows. He pockets the last of the Droobles wrappers and stands, looking down at the woman—at his mum—who has been nothing more than a name to him for so long.

She looks younger, in death, than she did in life. The torture she endured aged her beyond her 51 years but death erases those lines and, for a moment, she is just Alice, another of Voldemort's many claims on the world.

It's so sad, so pathetic, Frank and his bride side by side in the hospital room. There's an odd sort of peace about them, a quiet sadness, a deep sigh of relief. There is something freeing about death after a life extended by pain; something so easy and quiet and gentle about death when compared to the bright, furious chaos of life.

Their funeral is on the following Tuesday. Neville and Hannah stand side-by-side, a happier ending to a similar tale, and watch as the pyre goes up in flames.

For a moment, Neville wants to crawl into the pyre between his parents and it is only now, when he's 30 and older by the minute, only now that he recognizes his parents as more than corpses.

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><p>Thanks, as ever, for reading. xoxo<p> 


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